Three Balconies Read Online Free PDF

his head away. There were four place settings to a table, arranged in geometrical precision.
    â€œThey’re not allowed to talk when they eat,” said the Warden, amazingly answering a question Kahn was going to ask. “It works out better that way.”

    Kahn, who loved fresh vegetables – and had recently taken to steaming them to seal in the flavor – suddenly smelled wonderful ones, hot and spicy and aromatic. The Warden led him over to the serving counter where proud prison chefs in great white hats stood beaming over vats of them – not only string beans and carrots, but also more obscure varieties that Kahn rarely got to eat such as okra and turnips, all simmering in their own hot juices. In truth, the meat didn’t look that terrific, but the overall aroma was profound and seductive; Kahn felt it was his first real contact with the South since he’d arrived.
    â€œThe vegetables sure do look appetizing,” he said, longing for a heaping plate of them, but too shy to ask.
    â€œAn inmate can have any five he likes,” said the Warden. (So why not just two for me, thought Kahn.)
    â€œWe grow our own,” the Warden continued. “That’s why they’re so fresh. Of course, you’d get tired of it after four or five years, like anything else, and yearn for a pizza.”
    Again, Kahn was struck by the Warden’s balanced attitude – but he was still disappointed when he wasn’t asked to sit down and have a plateful of the vegetables.
    â€œWould you like to go into the cellblock?” he asked Kahn.
    â€œOf course,” said the visitor, who wasn’t quite sure what the invitation entailed. Once, in the service, a Major had asked Kahn if he would like to shoot landings in a night-fighter. He’d said yes, and before he knew it, he was vomiting acrobatically in the sky. Kahn started to walk toward a white building with bars on the window.
    â€œNo, no,” said the Warden, “that’s the hospital. You don’t want them sawing your nuts off.”
    It was the Warden’s first tasteless remark; still, Kahn decided to write it off as rough-hewn correctional humor. The Warden led Kahn to yet another building, this one older than the hospital. For a moment, it reminded Kahn of the apartment house in which he had grown up, before his father made a little money in shoulder pads. It also occurred to him that perhaps most of the prison
funds were put into outward display – the sculpture in the Yard, the spotless dining room – and that the cellblock itself would be a hellhole. But it wasn’t quite true. The cellblock appeared to be a decent place, on the order of an old public school. He wasn’t quite prepared for all the steel, also the small amount of space between the bars. Only exceptionally slim fellows would be able to stick their arms through. Again, the building had a pleasant smell to it, which was surprising, considering all the tense bodies that were packed together in there. The Warden said that all the prisons were built as maximum security units. If they got a nicer group of inmates, they could always thin out the security. But the opposite wasn’t true. “You can lighten up, but you can’t tighten up,” said the Warden, using what Kahn assumed was a slogan for board meetings.
    â€œAm I seeing a typical facility?” asked Kahn.
    â€œPretty much,” said the Warden. “Although I guess Pardee is a little tougher.”
    Maybe I should be over at Pardee after all, Kahn thought. On the other hand, the Warden didn’t have to bring up the subject of Pardee at all. They walked up three flights of skeletal stairs, everything above and below them visible, the same with the sides. If you scratched your ear, they could spot it from one end of the prison to the other. When they got to the third tier, the Warden stopped and said: “This one’s as good as any.” A guard opened a